“I use it for reports.” She groped under the seat. “Don’t think I’ve ever used it on someone’s shirt.” She slammed shut the glove box on the third try.

“No,” Brazil said, clearing his throat again. “I mean, what you did in there. That guy must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds, and you decked him. All by yourself.”

West shoved the car in gear. “You could,” she said. “All you need is training.”

“Maybe you . . . ?”

She held up a hand as if halting traffic. “No! I’m not a goddamn one-person police academy!” She tapped the MDT. “Clear us outa here, partner.”

Brazil was tentative as he placed his fingers on the keyboard. He started typing. The system beeped as if it liked him. “God, this is so cool,” he said.

“Small minds,” West commented.

“Unit 700,” Radar, the dispatcher, said. “Missing person at five-fifty-six Midland.”

“Shit. Not again.” West grabbed the mike and tossed it to her partner. “Let’s see what they’re teaching volunteers these days.”

“700,” he said on the air for all to hear. “We’re ten-eighteen five-fifty-six Midland.”

Missing person reports were so much paperwork it was unbelievable. Such investigations were almost always fruitless, for either the person really wasn’t missing, or he was and dead. Radar’s preference was that West had gotten her butt kicked at Fat Man’s. At least Radar could ensure that she would be filling out forms the rest of her life, and Midland was government-subsidized housing, definitely not a nice place for a female or her reporter ride-along.

Luellen Wittiker lived in a one-bedroom unit. Her number, 556, like all others in Midland Court, was painted in huge numbers over the door. The city had done this free of charge so the cops could find places fast when out at night with searchlights sweeping and K-9 dogs panting. Luellen Wittiker had just moved here from Mint Hill, where she had worked as a checkout clerk in Wal-Mart until she hit her eighth month of pregnancy and got tired of Jerald coming around. How many times did she have to tell him no. N-O.

She paced, wringing her hands, her four-year-old daughter, Tangine, watching from the bed, which was close to the front door. Boxes were still stacked against a wall, although there were not many, since the Wittiker family traveled light. Luellen prayed every hour that Jerald would not find out where she had moved. He would show up. Oh yes. She paced some more. Where the hell were the police? They think this was the lay-away plan? Can’t do it now, pick it up later?

Oh yes. He would find her. Because of that bad seed child of hers. Wheatie was out there right now, God only knew where, probably trying to find a way to get hold of Jerald, who was not Wheatie’s biological father, but his mother’s last boyfriend. Wheatie hero-worshiped Jerald, and that was the problem. Tangine watched her mother pacing. Tangine was eating a Popsicle. Jerald was nothing more than a lowlife drugman, who bought and sold the big stuff, and did it, too.